Thanks for your comments. I had heard Radioshack notified people by email. I wish I knew their motivation - they had to know that it would hurt morale but for some reason didn’t care.

There must be some alternative reason for doing it that way that perhaps we are just missing.

Merrill

In Radio Shack’s case, they notified everyone by email the day before the lay off that there would be a lay off and those who were going to be laid off would receive an email the next day alerting them. I suppose they thought this would be the most efficient way in which to lay off a huge number of people at the same time, but it only reinforces people’s feelings that corporate America doesn’t care about the individual. I don’t think corporate America would accept a resignation via email from an employee, but maybe this will become the norm. This is an example of a bad use of technology.

I guess there is no good way to do it, but I don’t think the upper management who thought laying people off by email was a good idea would appreciate a cold, form letter, without the decency of human interaction, if they end up getting canned themselves one day.

It reminds me of people who have gotten a break-up email from a girlfriend / boyfriend …..it’s classless and just not the way anyone should be treated! It just says, I don’t have the time or the courage to speak to you in person. You’re not worth it!

Thanks for your comments. You are 100% right. Our mentor and friend John Boni would be very unhappy and troubled at the way this was handled.

Business today is operated at light-speed at so many times - but once in awhile we all need to slow down and do the right thing.

Merrill

And here I thought use of the”reply all” button was the worst things companies did with e-mail!

Email is incredibly valuable, but we have to be careful not to over-use it. We’ve all received email messages that created more questions than they answered. Was the sender angry? Misinformed? Hurried? Distracted? A poor writer? Or a combination of everything listed? Rather than trying to dissect someone’s intent — or start an unnecessary email chain — I think its a great idea to pick op the phone (or walk down the hall). Verbal cues and eye contact are often the best way to quickly and immediately erase any miscues.

I think this is especially true when so many of us (including me) use smartphones. Those tiny keyboards sometimes force us to write cryptic messages which can be easily mis-read — and just as easily fixed with a quick phone call.

I have had to let some good people go for doing something stupid. This may have happened because they were not thinking or just young yet in their experience. This said, I handle this with these rules in hopes that they will learn and grow through the experience. I can think of two case right off the top of my head in the past couple years in which both have since thanked me because they learned something and are thriving with their new roles…in yes….Marketing Research…and yes, with a couple company’s that I am sure we all know. This is at the end of the day is a win win for everyone!